Discourses in Norwegian Climate Policy: National Action or Thinking Globally?

Published date01 March 2004
DOI10.1111/j.1467-9248.2004.00464.x
AuthorEivind Hovden,Gard Lindseth
Date01 March 2004
Subject MatterArticle
Discourses in Norwegian Climate Policy: National Action or Thinking Globally? P O L I T I C A L S T U D I E S : 2 0 0 4 V O L 5 2 , 6 3 – 8 1
Discourses in Norwegian Climate Policy:
National Action or Thinking Globally?

Eivind Hovden and Gard Lindseth
University of Oslo
Norway is often recognised as a pioneer country in environmental politics. Norwegian climate
policy has changed considerably during the 1990s. It has evolved from a situation in 1989 where
there was a broad consensus round the notion that a national target for stabilisation of CO2 emis-
sions was the principal instrument for climate change abatement, to a situation at the turn of the
century where Norway emerged as one of the most committed supporters of flexible mechanisms,
the so-called ‘Kyoto mechanisms’. We identify two main discourses in the Norwegian politics of
climate change, and label them ‘national action’ and ‘thinking globally’. This paper gives insight
into the core elements of these two discourses and how they act as basic knowledge systems when
actors put forward standpoints on the climate change issue.
In 1989, Norway became the first country in the world to set a stabilisation target
for CO2 emissions. The aim was to stabilise emissions at the 1989 level by the year
2000. By 1995, this stabilisation target was officially abandoned, and no new target
for reducing domestic CO2 or greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions was set (MoE,
1995). Throughout the 1990s, Norway’s CO2 emissions continued to rise and the
business-as-usual scenario for 2010 estimates an increase of GHG emissions of no
less than 22 percent above 1990 levels. The most important reason for this devel-
opment is an anticipated 90 percent increase in emissions from oil and gas pro-
duction in the period 1990–2010 (MoE, 2001, p. 52). Norway’s current climate
policy objective is to comply with its international obligations stemming from the
Kyoto protocol (MoE, 2001, p. 28)1 – to reduce GHG emissions to 1 percent above
1990 levels by the period 2008–2012.
If one views climate policy as a question of national action to reduce emissions,
Norway is facing a substantial and, some would say, insurmountable challenge to
fulfil its obligations under the Kyoto protocol, especially if it is to be achieved at a
reasonable cost. However, if Norway makes extensive use of flexible mechanisms
for which the Kyoto protocol makes provision, it could still fulfil its Kyoto obliga-
tions in a cost-effective manner, in spite of an increase in national emissions. There
is a broad consensus in Norway today that, given the high cost of mitigation in
Norway, some use will be made of flexible mechanisms, so that emission reductions
can be more cost-effective. However, there is disagreement as to the extent to which
the provisions should be used, and thus how much reduction of GHG emissions
should take place through national action.
The extent to which flexible mechanisms may be used towards fulfilling the Kyoto
protocol obligations has also been a source of contention in international climate
© Political Studies Association, 2004.
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E I V I N D H O V D E N A N D G A R D L I N D S E T H
negotiations: should the reduction of GHG emissions take place through national
action or through the use of internationally more cost-effective flexible mecha-
nisms? The Kyoto protocol states that national action may be supplemented by the
use of flexible mechanisms, but no overall quantitative requirements for national
action are stipulated. Broadly, the disagreements on this issue have been fronted
by the US on the one side, and the EU and, by and large, the G-77 on the other
(Westskog, 2002). The former has been seeking a more flexible protocol, and the
latter has placed more emphasis on national action. Similar debates have ensued
nationally among parties to the Kyoto protocol. In this paper, the international
context, and the question of exactly how a party may fulfil its obligations under
the protocol, forms a backdrop for a more detailed analysis of Norwegian climate
policy debates from 1989 to the present day.
Norway is often recognised as a pioneer in environmental politics, with Gro Harlem
Brundtland in a central and dual role as former Norwegian prime minister and
chair of the World Commission on Environment and Development (WCED)
(Langhelle, 2000). A broad political consensus developed in Norway in the late
1980s and early 1990s, where climate change was viewed as a serious environ-
mental problem where national action for reducting CO2 emissions was required.
Today, however, the focus on national action to reduce GHG emissions has been
replaced with an equally committed focus on the so-called Kyoto mechanisms
and, more generally, the supposed positive international climate effects of the
Norwegian petroleum industry. There is no Norwegian national target for reduc-
ing GHG emissions.
Our point of departure is this change in focus from ‘national action’ to ‘thinking
globally’. We will draw on discourse analysis to deconstruct the story of climate policy
in Norway from 1989 to the present day. We do not primarily seek to provide a
judgement as to which of these policy discourses should prevail, nor do we engage
in any evaluation of their effectiveness. Rather, we propose a perspective which
highlights the discursive manoeuvring around political and scientific considera-
tions, which in the space of just 3–4 years in the early 1990s led to a dramatic
change in Norwegian climate policy. A discursive perspective makes visible how
central actors in the public debate relate to, and seek to influence, the discursive
context. Through the actors’ active use of the discourses, the discourses are con-
tinually reproduced and developed further in the field of climate policy. We aim
to show how central actors, inadvertently perhaps, use discourses in their very
public struggle to be heard, understood and validated.
As the signatories to the Kyoto protocol now begin to consider how to fulfil their
obligations, and whether and to what extent use should be made of the flexible
mechanisms, the Norwegian case takes on special relevance. This is because
Norway was one of the first countries where these issues were debated, and
Norway has been alone in Europe in its efforts to secure an international regime
allowing for virtually unlimited use of the Kyoto mechanisms. The Norwegian
case will therefore shed light on an issue area which is likely to become a ‘hot
potato’ among the European Kyoto signatories in the years leading up to
2008–2012.

D I S C O U R S E S I N N O RW E G I A N C L I M AT E P O L I C Y
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Discourse Analysis as an Applied Methodology
This paper is not by any means unique in its empirical focus. Several studies have
discussed developments in Norwegian climate policy in the 1990s, some with a
broader scope than what follows below. Nilsen (2001) is a historical work, while
authors such as Reitan (1998), Bolstad (1993) and Sydnes (1996), to a greater or
lesser extent, employ an interest-based perspective. The analysis below differs in
that it does not begin with interests as such, but rather ideas and concepts mani-
fested in discourses. This focus is necessary if we are to unveil the important and
independent role discourses played in the development of Norwegian climate
policy throughout the 1990s.
We will draw on discourse analysis to show how Norwegian climate policy has devel-
oped from a situation where Norway concentrated on unilateral Norwegian targets
and measures, to a situation where climate change has come to be understood,
first and foremost, as an international problem where national action is less signi-
ficant. Based on Foucault (1972), discourses will be viewed as broader sets of
linguistic practices embedded in networks of social relations and tied to narratives
about the construction of the world. In particular, we have founded our under-
standing on pioneer work done on the social constructions of environmental prob-
lems (Hajer, 1995; Litfin, 1994; Dryzek, 1997). Hajer defines discourse as ‘a specific
ensemble of ideas, concepts, and categorizations that is produced, reproduced, and
transformed in a particular set of practices and through which meaning is given to
physical and social realities’ (Hajer, 1995, p. 44).
A discursive approach stresses framework of meaning. Discourses define the range
of policy options and operate as resources which empower certain actors and
exclude others. They also serve as sites of resistance, fomenting the emergence of
counter discourses. Discourses imply prohibitions, since they make it difficult to
raise certain questions or argue certain cases; only certain people are authorised to
participate in a discourse (Hajer, 1995, p. 49). Policies are here viewed as products
of discursive struggles, rather than merely as products of institutional factors
(Allison, 1971) or actors’ interests (see Sabatier, 1999, for a thorough overview of
different actor-driven theories of the policy process). However, without the agents
promoting them, struggling over them or identifying with them, discourses would
not exist (Litfin, 1994). Institutions and individuals can thus reproduce, maintain
and ‘carry’ discourses, highlighting that discourses are not text and speech ‘float-
ing around’, but have a material and institutional anchoring (Neumann, 2001,
p. 92). Actors act within the framework of discourses, which exist independently
of the particular intentions and...

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